[Greg Wright]

Dave,  Good response.  I in no way meant that Junior classes should be eliminated, of course not. All I really mean is that the sport seems to spend 75% of it’s effort on 25% of it’s base. Despite the wording I believe that we are in agreement there.

 

In the early days of kart racing it was covered by and advertised to the hot rod, custom car, race car magazines of the time. Indeed magazines like Hot Rod Magazine, Car Craft and in particular Rod and Custom were the tide that lifted the karting boat. Without question kart racing sprung from the hot rod world.

Why shouldn’t the sport take a cue from it’s beginnings and begin to advertise and promote articles to be written in current magazines, websites etc. that are catering to that particular demographic.

 

And yes Dave I’m afraid you are smack on the money with your statement that we aren’t seeing a new generation of motorheads being raised. Heck, an amazing percentage of teen and 20 somethings never bothered to get a drivers license. This may be the biggest problem for all of motorsports eventually.

[Greg Wright]

Dave Hosie,   Hope you don’t think I’m picking on you but I will respectfully debate whether your statement of “The people we need to attract are the kids.” has legs.

IMO your assertion that once the kids get involved they will stay involved flies in the face of my personal experience. What I’ve seen is the kids get involved and by their mid-teens they either “move up” (I hate that term) to cars or lose interest and give it up.

Over the last 10 years I have tracked junior drivers in the successful KRA program at NCMP and here’s what I’ve seen. Starting with a field of kid karters (say 15 entries), only a modest percentage move up to the Jr. Sportsman (cadet?) level, from there the Jr. Sportsman drivers only seem to have well less than 30-35% move up to the Jr. Class. Then the Juniors move less than half to senior classes. End result over a 10 year period you may see 10-15% of the original group of kid karters spend any time in the senior divisions. Better than nothing for sure but nothing that I personally would want to pin the majority of my hopes on.

Again from my vantage point it seemed during the best years for growth in kart racing the Junior classes weren’t much more than an after thought. The founding fathers of our sport, (Art Ingels, Duffy Livingston, Gil Horstman etc.) focus was on the male demographic aging from mid 20s to mid 50s.

This group carried kart racing through the 60s, 70s, 80s and well into the 90s. Typically they were motorheads that had completed their education, established themselves in the work place and had a moderate amount of disposable income. They didn’t have stars in their eyes concerning a professional racing career, they just wanted to race hard, have fun and try to improve their craft. Those are the people that made a lifestyle out of kart racing and most of the juniors that did stick with the sport are their offspring.

 

Others may see it differently, that’s OK too, but I believe that a lot of the focus of the last 15+ years has been misguided.

Cheers,

[Greg Wright]

Kind of reminds me of the now defunct CKI doing something similar ending inVegas. History repeating itself?

[Greg Wright]

Dave,

Thanks for the reasoned response. Your statement that the current situation is bad for both the racer and the small shops is right to the point. The effect on the racer is (I think) obvious to most, however there seems to be a fair sized segment that feel that the shops are bloodsuckers getting rich off the racers back.

The fact is that the uproar that is kart racing today has made it harder and harder for the small shops to stay afloat. Constant changes in the flavor of the month when it comes to engines and chassis does a great job in making the shop owners inventory obsolete in what is an astonishingly short period of time. As a result most shop owners decline to keep as much inventory as they used to just to keep from getting hung with as much tied up in obsolete inventory.

Unfortunately that makes it very difficult to compete with companies that are fortunate enough to be operating on “old money” and the ones run by well heeled businessmen that aren’t worried about paying the mortgage and the light bill.

 

Your statement about all of racing in the US being a farce is true on the surface, but much of it is remaining successful in spite of the fragmentation. Drag racing in particular seems to have held off the effects of the economic downturn way better than most. My shop is adjacent to Lucas Oil Raceway @ Indianapolis (Formerly IRP) and every event from a NHRA blow out to the smallest ET based drag meet pack the racers in like sardines.

I also work part time as a USAC official and sprint car racing even though it is probably the leader in fragmentation sure seems reasonably healthy. I can’t speak for all of the US but here in the midwest sprint car tracks outnumber kart tracks by a huge margin and the fields are full everywhere and it’s common for there to be 4+ races per week and more than that when you find that many of the tracks run on the same dates.

Again I don’t have the answer, a member led organization quickly turns into anarchy with people wanting everybody’s ox to be gored but their own.

A benevolent dictator to lead the sport out of the wild is probably the answer but who in their right mind would accept that position?

 

[Greg Wright]

Dave Hosie wrote;

“What series is our National series? Is it SKUSA, WKA, IKF, USPKS ??? This is the issue. We do not have a leading recognized National series and therefore cannot identify who our National champions are.”

 

Dave, this topic has been beaten to death over and over on this forum and others. With all due respect I just do not agree.

I’ve written this rant several times on this forum in the past but I’ll do it again.

I don’t understand the obsession that kart racers have on “Having a true National Champion.”. Kart racing is not the least bit unique in this aspect. Think about it!

In 2014 who was the National Stock Car Champion? Did he run with NASCAR? ARCA? ASA? Others?

Who was the National Sprint Car Champion? Did he run with USAC? ALL STARS? SCRA? CRA? Others?

Who was the National Drag Racing Champion” Did he run with NHRA? AHRA? NDRL? Others?

My point is that the “No true National Champion.” spiel is of new real significance and in fact is quite normal in US motorsports.

IMO, the bigger problem is the manufacturers and  importers are running the show and they have resorted to fragmenting the sport more than ever before.

People like myself that have been intimately involved with kart racing for in my case over a half century can trace the change and subsequent decline of kart racing it can be directly traced to when the European (primarily Italian) “invasion” of North American kart racing began in earnest 15+ years ago.

I don’t know how to change the current course that our sport is taking but without real change I worry about the sports future.

 

[Greg Wright]

TJ, You beat me to it.

You are correct, the KF category has been a failure across the globe and is not the answer in the US or anywhere else. I believe that CIK has a program in place to replace the KF with a simpler design.

TJ has made in my mind a great decision to move away from the mess that TAG has become and go back to running the good old KT100 Yammie. There is a lot of misinformation about the KT and for the most part it’s malarkey and you can run the thing almost anywhere.

Hmmmm Affordable to buy and maintain, good competition, tons of knowledge in the field on these engines. Right now it seems that the KT100 may represent the closest thing to a true National class that we have right now.

[Greg Wright]

Rod Hawkins wrote;

Greg,  karting isn’t big enough to support so many interests.   Are you arguing that karting is heading in the right direction?</span>

 

Absolutely not, in fact if things don’t change I could make a decent argument that karting is in a death spiral.

The manufacturers are running and ruining the sport, that’s where the divisiveness seems to come from. Too many choices of series with manufacturer induced rules and/or equipment. The sport has become too expensive and too technical for many veterans so where does that leave the newbies?

Mark Jr, is correct and I agree with him totally but who is going to round up the herd if we ever get the gate to the barnyard closed again.

 

None of this however is because “We don’t have a true National Champion,”

[Greg Wright]

Bob Old friend, you wrote;

 

Karting is the only racing form I know of where the sport is not governed by one strong national org.

 

How about sprint cars, USAC, WOO, ASCS, CRA, ALL STARS  etc. Yet they still draw strong fields and tough competition.

 

How about drag racing, NHRA, AHRA, NDRL etc. Same thing goes there, strong fields and competition.

 

You also wrote;

 

We have no single National Champions in anything we do.

 

So what, the same goes for the racing organizations above and there doesn’t seem to be a huge outcry of “We don’t have a true national champion.”

 

The same thing goes for stock cars, NASCAR, ARCA etc.

 

Why should kart racing be any different?

[Greg Wright]

I’m surprised that the lawsuit tended by F1 hasn’t been a big topic of conversation on this forum. It’s been all over various International motorsports outlets. It’s about copyright infringement and names RJ Valentine exclusively. F1 Boston, F1 outdoors, F1 Logistics etc. are all using the trademarked F1 name without permission from Uncle Bernie Ecclestone.

[Greg Wright]

I just heard this this morning. I have known for quite some time that Norm wasn’t well but I’m shocked and devastated to hear of the loss of my long time friend.

 

Godspeed Old Friend.

[Greg Wright]

Paul, how does your theory work in a flat out high G type of corner? Since you have admitted that you are not a driver this means a corner that is taken without lifting or braking but is a challenging corner.

[Greg Wright]

Jim, That’s not my quote!! I never said that, the quote is from Bernie’s post not mine.

[Greg Wright]

Good post Bernie.

[Greg Wright]

In my original post I posed the questions of “Do you think this will make things better?” and “Do you think this will make things worse?”

To my surprise I should have asked one additional question; “Do you even care?”

Although there are statements that these changes of importership will stabilize this segment of the sport my personal feelings are that it will do just the opposite.

I have no issues with any of the parties involved but I’m not liking this particular change in the karting industry in North America.

Time will tell as always.

 

[Greg Wright]

Chuck, Yes Russell was instrumental and if I remember correctly George Russell was the American in Ital-American Motor Engineering (IAME).

Time will tell what the future brings but I personally feel that the Russells, Haddock, Italian Motors crews stayed loyal to the IAME brand and had their legs cut out from underneath them.

I’m trying very hard to understand the stated goal of the new importers of making the IAME product line available in more shops. I wasn’t aware that was a problem and I believe that this will continue the slide of TAG at the club level.

What press release were you reading Chuck, I’d like to take a look at it myself.

[Greg Wright]

Don’t have the cylinder sleeved. There are a number companies such as Millenium Technologies that do a bang up job of refinishing the bore.

[Greg Wright]

MCP!

 

[Greg Wright]

Never found it necessary, even with an XXL.

 

[Greg Wright]

Started with a 2 stroke West Bend 580. I guess that’s telling my age.

 

One of the best engines to start out with or stay with for that matter, Yamaha KT100.

[Greg Wright]

O-ring chain is not needed on a KT100, Tri-Flow is a very poor chain lube and not intended for that usage. Try Xeramic.

[Greg Wright]

No Gif, I was replying to John Weirheim.

[Greg Wright]

The reason that racers continue to cling the can to their hearts and reject the SR-Y combo is a total mystery to me.

[Greg Wright]

Some may disagree but we never use an inline filter on an engine with a Tillotson carb. The large internal screen should be sufficient. Walbro carbs and shifter type carbs are a different matter.

[Greg Wright]

RLV makes a nice airbox support, end of problem.

[Greg Wright]

Confirmed!!

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